Proof
by Firestar9mm
Summary: Danny Fenton has a secret identity and fights ghosts every day. So why is that easier than high school?


**Author's Introduction:**

I used to skulk around this site under the name of **Serena4**, but as times change, sometimes, so too do names, and so welcome to my 62nd fic, but the first one posted under my new pseudonym, **Firestar9mm**. New name, but same old me, same old fics.

Same old disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom (although if I did, I'd bring him to work with me in the Fenton Thermos to keep me company) or any elements of the song _Stairway to Heaven_ by Led Zeppelin. I am making no profit off this, but smiles are free.

(They are still free, right?)

* * *

**Proof**

_A Danny Phantom fanfiction

* * *

_

"Falling" was not the right word to describe being thrown from less than ten feet.

In addition to being star quarterback, Dash Baxter was starting pitcher on Casper High's baseball team, and he proved his skill now by tossing Danny Fenton across the hallway. The unfortunate victim smacked into a locker, leaving a Danny-shaped dent in the metal and a clanging sound that rang through the emptying afternoon corridor.

"Strike three, Fenton!" Dash guffawed. "You're outta here!"

Something snapped in Danny's dizzy brain as he hauled himself up from the floor. He couldn't remember what the fight was about, couldn't remember what had been said. All he knew was that he wasn't going to take this shit anymore.

Gritting his teeth, he growled low in his throat and sprang at Dash, swinging a wild punch at the bigger boy.

Dash seized Danny's wrist in one beefy hand. The other curled into a fist, and then Danny's eye was on the express train to the back of his head and the lights flickered once, twice before going out.

* * *

He hadn't realized his eyes were closed until it became so hard to open them.

"Danny. Danny..."

He forced his leaden lids open—well, one of them at least. The bright flash of an overhead light stung the open eye, and it began to tear as the dark shape above him blurred and shifted into worried violet eyes framed by thick lashes, the most beautiful eyes...

"Danny. Oh, Danny..."

"Sam." Saying her name out of his bruised throat was like speaking around a razor blade.

He was lying on cold linoleum. The only warmth was coming from Sam, who was stroking her knuckles down his cheek. The touch was soothing, but Danny tried not to lean into it; movement was disturbing the broken gears and tiny chirping cuckoos in his head.

"Danny, talk to me." Sam turned her head to someone Danny couldn't see, her nightdark hair fanning over her pale shoulder. "Ask him something. He might have a concussion."

Tucker's voice echoed in from somewhere beyond Sam. "Hey, Danny. What's the square root of one thousand, three hundred thirty one?"

"Something he'll _know_, you asshole," Sam snarled, then turned back to Danny. "What's my favorite song?"

Danny squinted, staring up at Sam's purple-lipsticked mouth, remembering her shaping the words to—

"_Stairway to Heaven_," Danny murmured, the lyrics coming to his dizzy brain. "_And she's buying a stairway to heaven..._"

Sam smiled. "That's my Danny."

Danny blinked, his chest aching pleasantly with the idea of being "hers" and his head aching rather unpleasantly with the pain of hitting a locker door from five feet away. He shrugged himself up to a sitting position with Sam's help, then pawed at the eye that stubbornly remained closed.

Sam seized his wrists. "Don't do that. You'll hurt yourself. It's swollen."

"I can't open it!" Danny said, trying again to claw at his eye.

"That _bastard_ Dash..." Sam turned her head once more. "Tucker, make yourself useful and go get some ice!"

Tucker knew that tone. When Sam got like that, you either did what she wanted or you got major trouble. He nodded and sprinted down the corridor, the pounding of his footsteps fading into echoes.

Sam winced, her hand fluttering near his swollen eye. "Hold still, okay? I'm going to try to clean you up." Fumbling in her shoulder bag, which had previously been thrown into a corner of the empty hallway, she came up with a packet of tissues and hurried over to the water fountain. Kneeling back at Danny's side, she swept his dark bangs off his forehead and swiped carefully at his bloody eye.

"Ow. Ow. Damn." Danny squirmed away from her.

"Hold still, you big baby," Sam said, but she chuckled despite her attempt to be stern. "I'm being as gentle as I can."

He smiled crookedly at her as she dabbed at his eye. "Hey, Sam? Thanks for taking care of me."

"Somebody's got to." She returned the smile, then raised a hand to cradle his face. He stilled beneath the touch, unsure of exactly what to do with both the physical contact and the sudden warmth pooling in his chest.

"I'm probably going to have trouble getting a date for a while, huh?"

"I don't know," Sam sighed, that smile digging a cute dimple in her cheek. "Makes you look tough."

Danny was starting to look forward to these surprise moments with Sam. They'd been happening with increasing frequency lately; their hands would touch, or a suggestive remark would be dropped in casual conversation. And then, inevitably, they'd both blush and look away.

But Sam was still touching him. She was blushing, but she wasn't looking away.

The sound of a throat clearing startled them both. Sam quickly dropped her hand back to the linoleum. A chill crept across Danny's skin where her hand had been.

"Um, Sam?" Tucker was standing in front of them, looking sheepish.

"What?" Sam asked irritably. "What is it, Tucker?"

"I couldn't get any ice in the cafeteria. All they had was this." He pushed his glasses up his nose with one hand and held out a package of frozen meat with the other.

Sam shuddered visibly at the idea of touching any kind of meat with her hands, frozen or otherwise, but she immediately reached out for it. "Give me that." And she held it carefully against Danny's eye. "This should at least keep the swelling down..."

"Sam, put that down. You hate meat," Danny said absently, wincing at the chill of the package on his skin.

She smiled at him. "Well, you're the one who's going to smell like it for the rest of the afternoon."

Unable to help himself, Danny laughed.

* * *

"It's not that bad," Tucker lied. "Really."

The three friends were walking home. Danny was looking in every shop window at the purple and black monstrosity that was his right eye.

"It looks goth," Tucker added with happy inspiration. Smacking Sam in the arm, he told her, "Tell him it looks goth."

"It doesn't look goth," Sam said flatly. Danny appreciated her honesty. "Listen, Danny, it just looks like you got into a fight, which is exactly what happened."

"No, what _happened_ is that I got the stuffing beaten out of me," Danny spat. "I'm not going to school tomorrow. Not like this." He shook his head angrily. "Everyone will know what happened. They're all going to laugh at me."

"They laugh at you anyway," Tucker offered feebly.

Danny and Sam shot identical glares at their friend. "Thanks, Tuck," Danny muttered.

They were at Tucker's street anyway. He backed off, grinning nervously. "Well, see you guys tomorrow—well, see _you_ tomorrow, Sam." Turning, he jogged off, grateful to get away from the angry looks.

"Remind me why we're friends with him?" Danny asked once they'd walked another block.

Sam bumped her shoulder against his comfortingly. "Because he's really useful to have around when there's a standardized test."

"It's pretty funny how someone who dresses as miserably as you do makes me laugh so much." He bumped her back.

They were in front of the Fenton house. Sam looked down at the toes of her combat boots. "Listen, I'll bring your assignments home tomorrow. You know, if you decide not to come in."

It was nice of her to offer, especially since she so obviously disapproved. "Thanks, Sam."

He walked up the steps and was about to put his key in the lock when he heard her voice again. "Hey, Danny?"

He turned. Skirt and hair were ruffled by a passing breeze, but her gaze was soft and her voice calm as she said her goodbye.

"You fight ghosts every day, Danny, but I think today was the bravest thing you've ever done." She twitched him a small smile. "See you later."

* * *

Jazz never knocked, and today was no exception. She pushed the bathroom door open, the sound of running water drawing her down the hall. Danny glared out of his good eye at her before returning to the sink and cringing at the sight of his mangled face.

"Jesus Christ, Danny! What happened to you?" His sister's blue eyes were wide and shocky as she stared at his bruise. Then she frowned, nostrils flaring. "What smells like hamburger?"

"I could have been doing something _private_ in here," Danny muttered, pressing a damp washcloth to his eye, much in the way Sam had earlier.

"You got in a fight," Jazz deduced.

"Way to go, Detective Fenton," Danny said, his attention focused on the mirror. "What is this, _CSI: Amity Park_?"

Jazz leaned against the doorjamb. "Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?"

"What for?" Danny shut the tap off with a vicious twist. "They won't care unless I said a ghost did it. And, incidentally, a ghost didn't do it."

This time, but he didn't add that.

Jazz hovered in the doorway for a second, then vanished, as if she were the one who was half ghost.

* * *

Lasagna looked too much like his ruined face for Danny to have much interest in dinner. He stabbed at it a couple of times with his fork before abandoning it in favor of a harmless-looking salad. Maybe Sam was onto something with that ultra-recyclo-vegetarian thing.

"So, what's new with everyone?" Maddie Fenton asked, her voice as smooth as a presenter's on a game show. "See or do anything interesting today?"

Jack Fenton's eyes glazed with excitement, but Jazz interrupted before he could go on a rant about ghosts. "I got an A on my history paper about spectral evidence."

"Spectral evidence? Wouldn't that be better suited for a class about criminal justice?" Jack asked. "Ghostly testimony could advance—"

"Dad, spectral evidence isn't real. There was never actually any ghost testimony—" Jazz began, then shot a glance at Danny. Desperate to save herself from another of her father's speeches, she pointed her forefinger at her brother like a pistol. "Danny got in a fight today."

Forks clinked against plates; all eyes turned to Danny. He kicked Jazz under the table.

The silence hung heavy in the air for a second, and then Jack Fenton had one of his rare moments of supportive parenting.

"Well, well! Good for you, son, good for you." He picked up his fork and resumed attacking his lasagna, exchanging a smile with Danny.

"Really?" the youngest Fenton asked.

Maddie raised her eyebrows at her husband. "Yes, Jack, where are you going with this?"

"The boy needs to learn about challenge," Jack explained patiently, as if this should have been common knowledge. "About overcoming adversity! About standing up for himself!"

Danny and Jazz exchanged bemused glances.

"Plus, it'll be good practice for you when you start hunting ghosts," Jack added with a grin, pounding the table with an excited fist.

Danny sighed, shaking his head. So much for that.

"You almost got it, Dad," Jazz said sadly, reaching past her brother for the ranch dressing.

* * *

Danny slept long and deeply that night, the memory of Sam's little smile following him down into the dark.

"_And she's buying a stairway to heaven…_" he murmured as his alarm went off. Shrugging himself up to a sitting position, he blinked at the digital display. Part of him still wanted to huddle under the covers and ignore the throbbing in his eye, but he couldn't forget what she'd said the night before.

_"You fight ghosts every day, but I think yesterday was the bravest thing you've ever done."_

He'd go to school. He wouldn't let Dash have the satisfaction. And Sam would be proud…

Sprinting out into the hallway, he managed to make it into the bathroom two seconds before Jazz, who pounded on the door and screamed about how unfair the world was as he turned the shower taps.

* * *

Of course, Dash cared nothing for Danny's brave front. "Nice _shiner_, Fenton!"

"Nice overbite, Dash," Danny commented tiredly, walking past him to homeroom. He wasn't in the mood for piss-take.

Neither, apparently, was Dash. "You better not let me catch you after school, Fenton, or I'll make your eyes match!"

"Sam better appreciate this," he muttered, heading through the doorway.

Tucker brightened as soon as he saw his friend, and Danny was happy to see a smile. Unfortunately Lancer blocked the sight almost immediately.

"_Great Expectations_! Danny Fenton, you look like you've been playing the Raiders."

"And losing," Kwan said, raising a hand to Dash for the high-five.

Danny scowled. "Maybe I'll have a really interesting scar, and you guys can make fun of me every day for the rest of my life." He trudged to his desk and sat down, trying not to meet anyone's gaze.

Surprisingly enough, Lancer addressed Danny once more before taking roll. "Scars are proof of survival, Danny. If you have a scar, you lived through it. If not, there's one less name I have to call at roll." Looking back down at his roll book, he shook his head. "_Sense and Sensibility._I truly don't know what goes on with you kids," he muttered. "First Manson and now Fenton."

It occurred to Danny that he hadn't seen Sam that morning. He turned to her explanation, but at the sight of the dark girl, his expression faded into awe.

Sam smiled at him and waved her hand discreetly beneath her desk. She had way more makeup on one side of her face than on the other—purple and blue shadow blended together over the lid and the pale skin surrounding her right eye...

...the exact same color of his bruise.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

My mama had a scar. She hated it, and to make her feel better, I used to tell her that scars are proof of survival. I don't know if it made her feel better, but it always made me feel better.

I have a few scars of my own, but hey, who doesn't? I'm proud of mine, even the ones you can't see—_especially _those.

I love: Danny Fenton, and reviews.


End file.
